NORTH WEST Euro MP Chris Davies has added his voice to calls to scrap Strasbourg as a venue for the European Parliament.

The MEP claims it would save taxpayers more than £100 million every year if MEPs only met in Brussels.

Chris Davies is the latest in a long line of MEPs, started by Derek Prag, to call for an end to the 'travelling circus'.

Along with eight other MEPs, Chris Davies has founded the Campaign for Parliament Reform. The group claims to have the support of 90 parliamentarians from 13 different countries.

The reform group intends to ask every candidate standing at this June's Euro elections to pledge they have a single base in Brussels.

The MEP said: "It is ridiculous that taxpayers' money should be wasted by having two separate places to meet when we have a perfectly good parliament building in Brussels at the heart of the European institutions."

Strasbourg straddles the border between Germany and France and is regarded as a symbol of peace with a once war torn continent.

But although the Strasbourg parliament building is used for only four days every month, MEPs are forced to meet there by an international treaty agreed by John Major at the 1992 Edinburgh Summit.

Mr Davies continued: "Euro MPs now have more influence over the making of many laws than backbench domestic MPs at Westminster, and the powers of the European Parliament are growing all the time.

"Yet, despite the fact that a huge majority of MEPs want to change the ridiculous travel arrangements we are forced to continue because the Prime Minister has not pushed for change."